Robert Draper has a scathing piece on Donald Rumsfeld in GQ (AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED) which amplifies a lot of standing critiques of Rumsfeld and includes an odd, if not creepy, bit of manipulation of Bush via the usage of Bible verses on intelligence briefing on Iraq:
The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”
[...]
These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout—as one Pentagon staffer would later say—“would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”
But the Pentagon’s top officials were apparently unconcerned about the effect such a disclosure might have on the conduct of the war or on Bush’s public standing. When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because “my seniors”—JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself—appreciated the cover pages.
But one government official was disturbed enough by these biblically seasoned sheets to hold on to copies, which I obtained recently while debriefing the past eight years with those who lived them inside the West Wing and the Pentagon
A slide show of the covers can be found here.
These are creepy, in my estimation, for a variety of reasons.
First, it would appear to be blatant manipulation of the President, and what is creepy about that is that the President was apparently manipulatable in such a fashion, albeit it is believable:
The Scripture-adorned cover sheets illustrate one specific complaint I heard again and again: that Rumsfeld’s tactics—such as playing a religious angle with the president—often ran counter to sound decision-making and could, occasionally, compromise the administration’s best interests. In the case of the sheets, publicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all the SecDef’s style—“Rumsfeld was old-fashioned that way,” Shaffer acknowledged when I contacted him about the briefings—but it was decidedly Bush’s style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible. No matter that, if leaked, the images would reinforce impressions that the administration was embarking on a religious war and could escalate tensions with the Muslim world. The sheets were not Rumsfeld’s direct invention—and he could thus distance himself from them, should that prove necessary.
Really, this feeds into the view of Bush as a simplistic and not especially intellectual man. Some may wish to state that this is a media-driven image, but I would counter that the evidence to date all suggests that it is an accurate portrait. I say this, by the way, as one who initially thought (back in 1999/2000) that media accounts his intelligence were unfair. Sadly, eight years of empirical evidence (quite a bit less, actually) convinced me otherwise.
Second: this was a stupid, insofar as such images could have added substantial fuel to the fire that the US was engaged in a new set of Crusades against the Muslim world. As such, the very existence of these covers had the potential to be extremely explosive, politically speaking.
Beyond that, it is simply disconcerting to have a Bible verse about committing to the Lord over a photo of a soldier with a giant gun (among other such juxtapositions).
Third: to my religiously-minded readers whose first reaction might be a positive predisposition to the usage of Bible verses, let’s consider what was going on here. We are not talking about looking to the divine for wisdom and guidance, we are talking here about the crass usage of scriptural references for the ex post facto justification of acts already committed–and for the manipulations of those reading the material.
The article is about far more than the covers and is worth a read.
h/t: DougJ@Balloon Juice.
Sphere: Related Content
May 17th, 2024 at 3:59 pm
Psalm 33? To justify a Christian leader’s overthrow of the dictator of a Muslim land?
What a gross mis-use of Hebrew scripture!
(And, yes, ‘gross’ in both senses of the word.)